Ethnicity

Key Issue 2: Why Have Ethnicities Been Transformed into Nationalities

What is a nationality?
Nationality: identity with a group of people who share legal attachment and personal allegiance to a particular country Latin word nasci meaning to have been born A Nation: a group of people tied together to a particular place through legal status and cultural tradition Similarity with ethnicity: both are defined through shared cultural values

Nationality in the U.S.

Anyone who is a citizen of the U.S. (born or immigrated) Ethnicity identifies groups with distinct ancestry and cultural traditions Race distinguishes between skin colors Puzzle: How to you categorize a white South African studying at UGA?

Outside the U.S.

Distinctions between ethnicities and nationalities are muddier Confusion can lead to violent conflicts

Rise of Nationalities
NationStates Ethnicities have been transformed into nations because of a desire for selfrule Self-determination Nation-states: a state whose territory corresponds to that occupied by a particular ethnicity that has been transformed into a nationality
The territory of a state rarely corresponds precisely to the territory occupied by an ethnicity

Nation States in Western Europe

By 1900, most of Western Europe was made up of nation-states Disagreement was about borders in African and Asian colonies

Nation-States in Eastern Europe

In the early 1900s, Eastern Europe was comprised of states that did not match the distribution of ethnicities Following WWI, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires were dismantled and boundaries were redrawn to match the principle of nation-states

The Nazis
In the 1930s, the Nazis announced that they would claim all German speaking areas Sudetenland Poland

Denmark
Good example of a European nation-state
Danish ethnicity

No perfect nation-states
The Southern border with Germany does not divide the Danish and German nationalities perfectly Faeroe Islands and Greenland

Nationalism
Nationalism: loyalty and devotion to a nationality
Essential for survival Creating nationalism: effective through the media and symbols
Centripetal force: an attitude that tends to unify people and enhance support for a state

Negative impact: the sense of unity is often achieved through the creation of negative images of other states

Multi-ethnic States
Multi-ethnic state: a state that contains more than one ethnicity
Example: Belgium
Two ethnicities (Flemings and Walloons) One nationality

Multinational States
Multinational state: contains two ethnic groups with traditions of self-determination that agree to coexist peacefully by recognizing each other as distinct nationalities
Example The United Kingdom (4 nationalities: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland)

Former Soviet Union

The largest multinational state Its 15 republics were based on its 15 largest ethnicities. The 15 republics are now countries There are 5 groups:
Three Baltic: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania Three European: Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine Five Central Asian: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan Three Caucasus: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia Russia

Russia
Now the largest multinational state Russian officially recognizes 39 nationalities, many want independence Chechens: a group of Sunni Muslims who speak a Caucasian language and have distinct cultural characteristics
Chechnya contains oil Russia wont let them go

Turmoil in the Caucasus

An area about the size of Colorado between the Black and Caspian Seas

Turmoil in the Caucasus

Several ethnic groups: Azeris, Armenians, Georgians, Chechens, Ingush, Ossetians, Kurds, Russians. The Soviet Union quelled disputes Since the fall of the Soviets, disputes have risen again The goal for each group: To carve out a nation-state

Ethnicity and Communism

From the end of WWII to the 1990s, people were more concerned about attitudes towards communism than with the nationstate principle The soviets suppressed nationalism through centripetal forces

Rebirth of Nationalism in Eastern Europe

Nationalism became very important in Eastern Europe in the 1990s The Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia were all dismantled because of their many minorities

Ethnicity Key Issue #2

Summary- So why and how have ethnicities been transformed into nationalities?